No Rift With NFA Anymore, Says Keshi

Super Eagles’ Head Coach, Stephen Keshi, said on Wednesday that the rift between him and the Technical Committee of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) has been bridged.

Keshi made this known in Abuja at the team’s interactive session with the media.

He said that his intention was to correct the anomalies that would have jeopardised the team’s chances of success at the 2013 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament in South Africa.

“We are all grown up people; we have our own different ideas and opinions and we have our different ways of seeing things; I wasn’t comfortable with what I saw in South Africa and I just let them know and that is it.

“It’s not about an individual, saying that I don’t like you and you don’t like me, it’s all about moving Nigeria football forward; that is it.

“But, we are together, everything is resolved and that is why we are here.”

Keshi said that contrary to what was widely reported, the list of the players invited for World Cup qualifying match with Kenya, did not generate any form of disagreement within the technical committee of the NFA.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that former members of the Technical Committee Austel Elumelu and Paul Bassey had expressed reservations over the invitation of some players to the camp.

They had argued that the technical committee needed to see a player’s profile before he is invited to the national team.

Keshi, however, said that the NFA had scrutinised the list before it was made public.

“There was nothing like that between NFA and i over the list. We made the list and gave to the NFA and it is there position to let it out to the public and there was never a problem.

“NFA and I don’t ve a problem. We need to be together to move this team forward otherwise there is no rift between us.

“I have watched Babatunde Micheal play; he is going to be a fantastic player and John and we have a lot of them outside there, young ones that are hungry to play for this country that you guys need to help build.

“You guys need to give the courage and confidence that they can do it. We can't keep relying on older players every day and we say we want to move forward; let us have people that will take over when this group leaves.

“We should forget what happened in South Africa, we need to look forward to the game on March 23 against Kenya.

“That is the most crucial match for us now and we need to be focused and make Nigerian proud.

“We have our own strategy. Every player in that squad is good so we need to prepare ourselves in a way that we can be better in the game on March 23.

“The most important thing is for my team to understand and know their role, task or function probably we will be good.’’

Keshi pointed out that the team needed all the support it could get from Nigerians to enable it to pick a 2014 FIFA World Cup ticket.

The Eagles’ handler said his foreign based players had been given up to March 19 to report to the camp.

According to him, the idea is to have few days of training to enable the home and foreign based players to blend before the encounter with the Harambee Stars.